Eons ago, back in the day when MTV played music videos and Tom Cruise didn’t jump on couches, you actually deigned to spend your allowance on CDs. Some of those probably had the dreaded parental advisory sticker on them. Those are the ones you stashed far and deep in your dresser lest your parents find them and pop a blood vessel.

Gone are those days. But lyrics today are as explicit as ever, causing disgruntled Wal-Mart executives and prompting grandmas to pray an extra “Hail, Mary” for our generation’s collective soul.

The Inclusiveness and Intercultural Services office hosted a student panel Wednesday to discuss the effects of song lyrics on today’s society.

“It is getting to a point where we have to stop and look,” said Jared Stratford, a sophomore radio-TV-film major and one of the panelists. “Is this what we want our children to listen to?”

Stratford cited hip-hop and rap as music usually associated with unwholesome messages. He said that while there are positive artists in these genres, the negative ones sell more.

“Everyone wants to be from the ghetto,” Stratford said.

Hip-hop and rap are not the only ones taking the heat. Rock and pop have been criticized for promoting violence, promiscuity and drug use.

Sensitivity to the issue of lyrical content reached a high in 1999 when Marilyn Manson was accused of influencing Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the shooters in the Columbine High School massacre.

Parents, politicians and religious figures took turns lambasting Manson’s music, which they claimed had fueled the teenagers’ murderous rampage.

Even though Manson is not one to garner much sympathy, he was unfairly made a scapegoat of the massacre, along with video games and the Internet.

We vilify the media because it is easier to do so than to look around and admit we are the problem.

Yes, a lot of what you hear on the radio is not pretty, and in an ideal world, 50 Cent would sing about puppies and green fields instead of oral sex. But the music industry caters to us.

“They sing about what’s going to appeal to the masses,” said Brittany Richards, a sophomore musical theater major and a member of the panel.

If we demand obscenity, then artists will deliver. In that sense, the music scene is not so much a negative influence as it is a snapshot of today’s youth.

Music alone won’t thrust people into a life of crime and vice. I like rock, and so far I haven’t been compelled to sacrifice any kittens to Satan. If a teenager finds that the lyrics to a rap song legitimize criminal behavior, then that should be a sign of deeper issues.

Our parents can’t trap us in a bubble to shield us from the media, but if they raised us right they can trust we have enough sense to screen the messages.

Julieta Chiquillo is a sophomore news-editorial major from San Salvador, El Salvador.